Men of Many Talents
by Miziggy
Summary: Holmes/Watson drabbles from the 100 Prompt list, selected using a random number generator. Give me any prompt, review, or PM, and I'll write up to 300 words. Rated for slash and possible mature content in later prompts.
1. Spring

**Spring**

It's the scent of red mud that tells Watson where Holmes has been. It's his first truly accurate deduction, and Holmes paces across the sitting room in excitement.

"I have always said it is simply a matter of observing. Finally, you have learned!" Already, Holmes is reaching for his violin. "If I could teach you the simpler sciences-- tobacco ash identification and so on-- imagine what we could do!"

Watson stands, arms locked behind his back in military posture, almost embarrassed at Holmes' enthusiasm, but not enough to say anything. Holmes, for the first time in weeks, is truly engaged. He mentions star charts and soil samples, hemoglobin and sandstone, and Watson stops attempting to follow his words and instead watches his hands: those long, tapering fingers illustrating his every expression.

Holmes is, in a word, beautiful. Watson will never say it, of course, but it's there, blatantly obvious, and it's practically scientific when Holmes produces one of Watson's favorite airs in celebration, waving towards a decanter on a small table.

"Pour some brandy, would you? And after, I believe we must get you a pair of good leather gloves. There's no telling what you'll mess up in my laboratory."


	2. Speculation

**Speculation**

Holmes considered Watson: seriously, and for the first time in months. He couldn't say why-- only that Watson was being evaluated in all aspects, and that he wasn't learning much he hadn't already known.

Watson was a respectable gentleman with an unfortunate gambling problem.

He had been out recently, and at least one of those trips had been to a disreputable area.

Holmes considered Watson's face and its particulars: Watson was not drunk or otherwise intoxicated. This, Holmes deduced by Watson's expression, which was far too amused to have been produced by any chemical process. Also, there was a stray hair-- very un-military-- that, surely, Watson would appreciate having straightened.

Holmes reached for it, and somewhere along the way, he deduced he must have done something that Watson particularly enjoyed, because it was with a singular speed and agility that Holmes found his hand pressed against Watson's cheek, with Watson's mouth against his own.

Interesting. Holmes decided that this was an area that deserved further investigation.


	3. Inevitable

_**Inevitable**_

It had started with tremors-- small, subtle shiftings in furniture. Glasses of water grew ripples, and teacups trembled, not hard enough to speak. A subtle teacup whisper that comes from the scraping of porcelain-- that is the sound that accompanied the first part of it all, the sound that made dogs cry and run under tables.

Like all things, the first part led to a second, and the movement between the two was a great collapse, and fire bells rang from the ground because their towers had fallen, and ships rode the great shock waves out of the harbor until they found safer winds.

Among this, but a bit farther away, a man stood in an undecorated room, hands behind his back in a familiar posture, a cane tucked beneath his right elbow. It had taken this much for Holmes to notice him, to burst through the factory doors with an expression akin to fear, to fall at his feet without seeing his perfectly shadowed face.

Holmes saw the man's shoes and sighed, brushing off a bit of mud with a motion that was almost tender. Resigned, he looked up. "Watson. I'm so terribly sorry."

Watson nodded. "As am I." And he plunged the butt of his cane through Holmes' throat.

London had fallen.


	4. Sight

**Sight**

Holmes can remember a time before, when he could look at an article of clothing and see it as a utensil for warmth, and not a vehicle for information. He can remember when he was too young to defend himself, and when his bread money was stolen by other, larger children.

There was a certain agitation that accompanied his innocence-- because it _was_ an innocence-- that delicate frustration of wanting to have and being denied the very foundations of knowledge-- and he, a younger man, saw it as an unfortunate life companion and slew it as efficiently as he could.

Holmes couldn't regret it now, perhaps because he knew that it was only his subsequent knowledge that allowed him to recognize his past folly, but there were days that he spent considering the futility of intellect and the inevitability of entropy.

Those were the days he contented himself with his cocaine bottle, the days he would lie in a stupor until some higher power relieved him of his ennui, brought him back into a world in which his knowledge was useful, enjoyable. A world he understood, and appreciated more because of his understanding.

Watson was usually that higher power. Watson, the one who could pull his pillows out from underneath him and his ounce of shag away from him, the one who could force him in front of a wash basin to shave away the accumulated symptoms of apathy. Watson, the eternal puzzle: not in fact, but in potential.

Holmes can remember a time before he met Watson, a time when he could look at a man and see him as nothing more than a receptacle for ideas or facts. He doesn't miss it.


	5. Stuck

**Stuck**

Just as Holmes can feel eyes on the back of his neck-- can sense fists coming from behind, hands poised to land on elbows or indeterminate shoulders-- he can feel a heat at the other side of his bedroom door, a change in air pressure, as though Watson's presence-- because that is surely who the heat must be-- is enough to change the very laws of nature by standing still.

It's an exercise in inertia to wait, a book held open to a diagram of capillaries, until the air shifts a bit. It's not enough of a shift to bring Watson through the door, but it's enough to make Holmes consider the maps he could make of Watson's veins, if he had the opportunity. If Watson had the inclination.

Holmes isn't quite sure what the excuse will be; if this time, Watson will have a nightmare or a delicate patient or a difficult case; or if it will be an entirely silent affair, something silent and desperate and forbidden and all sorts of _wrong_, because some laws were meant to be broken, but not this one that way, the way that made them both feel sick.

They always felt sick. It was never honest-- always an excuse, never acknowledgment, never passion. It wasn't some great, forbidden love; not something to agonize until bones ached with the density of compelling need. Not for Watson, anyway.

The breath on the other side of the door quickened, and Holmes ran a finger down the side of the book. What would it be like, he wondered, to sleep with Watson's chest pressed against his back? Or even to see, for an instant, an expression of anything more than lust?

Holmes is an excuse, and he's aware enough of the situation to know his role perfectly. So, when Watson finally opens the door and pretends he hadn't been waiting there for long minutes, Holmes pretends along with him: mentions new detective discoveries as though he was thinking about them all along, raises his eyebrows as though he's surprised when Watson sits on his bed, doesn't try for any sort of intimacy.

Holmes is still not sure why Watson comes to him-- he could find out if he wanted to. He doesn't. He knows that some things are easier in ignorance.


End file.
